Just over a year after releasing their breakout LP, Yoncalla, Yumi Zouma return with their sophomore album. For the making of Willowbank, Yumi Zouma's members settled on a plan to reunite during the New Zealand summer to complete what would become their first significant work written entirely in their home country. In a rented a studio in Christchurch’s CBD, on one of the few remaining blocks that still characterize the city from before it was destroyed by a series of earthquakes, the band set to work. “It was as though there was a brief pause in all of our lives and we finally felt like a band from New Zealand,” explained Josh Burgess. “We were on home turf and creating from a place that felt fundamentally natural.”

That feeling of rootedness is undeniable on Willowbank. Being connected to their origins on the bottom of the earth allowed the band to craft another essential chapter in the Yumi Zouma storybook.